Fresh from meeting with Australia's Wikimedia Chapter, Mark will join us for a few words. Founder of WikiIndex, the Universal Edit Button, and other wiki-related projects, few individuals are more knowledgeable about the concept of wiki. You won't find a more reasonable and sane wiki zealot.

Venue

The venue will be the historic center of the Multnomah County Library system, Central Library. Dave has booked the room from 12pm-6pm, allowing us ample time for pre-event setup and post-event cleanup. Thanks Dave, Mark, and Pete, who have all pitched in to help locate a venue!

Date, time

Date: Saturday, March 5, 2011

Time: 2pm - 5pm

Activities

free drinks/food

wiki cupcake decorating: design, frost and build your own cupcake with various toppings!

awesome speakers

brief overview of PortlandWiki and its history, plus how it's different now since launch in September 2009

identify what needs to be done

secure activity commitments from attendees

if time, have collaborative editing session

raffle

Ways to promote activity after initial commitment

frequent follow-up meetings that are fun or otherwise personally worthwhile

rewards (mentioned below)

(Good) reasons to edit

For Portland enthusiasts

Share your love and knowledge about Portland and all its quirks

Learn pieces of Portland's story from fun and enthusiastic peers

Get to know your neighbors; participate in discussion about local issues

For wiki people

Are you already working on one or more wikis? Maybe one for your organization, or for Wikipedia? Here's why it might be fun to work on Portlandwiki, too!

Exchange ideas about wikis; show off your work, learn from others.

Help build a network of wiki and free culture enthusiasts in Portland. Portland has a rich history in the wiki and free culture worlds; this is a way to extend and express it.

Be part of something innovative!! We can be more nimble than a big wiki like Wikipedia. Is there a way to mash up our content with OpenStreetMap? Let's find out! Want to try out a cool new wiki extension? Let's give it a whirl! It's fun to fool with wikis with other wiki folk.

For businesses

Bring a little local traffic to your web site

Network in your neighborhood; get to know your neighbors and neighboring businesses

For non-profit organizations

Establish your role in Portland's story

Ways to edit (or, what we need)

These include long-term as well as short-term goals.

creating new articles and improving existing ones

goal: 10 impressive articles, worth showing anyone!

goal: 500 very basic articles (descriptive sentence or two, a url or two, perhaps a few standardized section headers [history, etc] a few categories)

Done - February 2 10-11am - Dave, Kotra, Mark, and anyone else interested meets with Marie at MMT to discuss if they can spare some office space or a conference room on Wednesday evenings for us to host WikiWednesdays

3:45 - 4:30: break into groups and collaborate! Experiment! Show each other what you're doing!

4:30 - 5:00: what do you want to see on PortlandWiki? Let's do it! Promote future meetups where we can do more.

5:00 - 6:00: cleanup

Big Picture

Political and social power is not simply the birthright of the wealthy, famous or politically connected. It is potentially the province of a conscious, alert and informed citizenry able to collectively harness an understanding of where they and their communities fit within the larger world. Collaborative information-sharing and knowledge-building technologies like wikis and other social media are tools regular people can use to wield significant power. Civic wikis, like PortlandWiki, offer a unique focal point where ordinary people can organize planned, deliberate campaigns to take control of their communities for the benefit of the people who live there.[2]

Frequently conversations at our Monday Meets or WikiWednesday meetups will gravitate towards weightier subjects. Not in the "a moment on the lips, an eternity on the hips"[3] sense, but more like a "wow, like that's totally deep"[4][5] sense. One theme we hope weaves its way throughout our Barnraising event is the "what's our motivation?" question. What's your motivation? Why PortlandWiki? What are some of the possibilities that can emerge? What are your thoughts and ideas? How can PortlandWiki contribute to the entire Portland community?